Today, President Clinton will visit LOS ANGELES AND ANAHEIM to highlight private sector efforts to invest in the skills of disadvantaged youth. President Clinton will talk about issues related to human capital on the final day of his trip to America’s New Markets – after focusing on financial capital the previous three days.

President Clinton will kick-off the Youth Opportunities Movement with Secretary Herman by meeting with several students and participants in the Youth Opportunities program, as well as corporate investors who are announcing various commitments, at Locke High School and Southwest Community College in Los Angeles.

Later, the President will join Sanford Weill (Chairman and Co-CEO, Citigroup) – along with Secretary Daley, business leaders, teachers, school administrators, and students – to participate in the National Academy Foundation’s Conference which will focus on preparing disadvantaged high school students for careers and further education.

President Clinton Kicks Off the Youth Opportunity Movement. The Youth Opportunity Movement is a call to action – bringing together employers, nonprofits, entertainers, and athletes to invest in new solutions to help our nation’s disadvantaged, out-of-school young people gain skills and join the workforce. And today, dozens of these partners are answering that call to action by making real commitments to assist young people in gaining those skills.

Currently, there are more than ten million youth aged 16-24 who are out of school and have only a high school diploma or less, and four million who have less than a high school diploma.

The Youth Opportunities Movement – along with GEAR-UP, School-to-Work, YouthBuild, Job Corps, and other related initiatives – is a significant part of President Clinton’s workforce agenda for young people.

This year, the Department of Labor will provide $250 million in Youth Opportunities grants, selecting new model programs to get young men and women into the workforce. These grants will build on the success of the Youth Opportunity Areas for Out of School Youth projects that have already helped more than 3,000 young people get started in careers across the country.

President Clinton Joins Sandy Weill, Lucent Technologies, and Others to Provide $8 Million for the National Academy Foundation to Create Information Technology Academies. Prompted by Lucent Technologies, the National Academy Foundation (NAF) – one of the nation’s foremost school-to-career programs – will develop a new Academy for Information Technology providing disadvantaged young people access to technology. Launched in 1982 by Sandy Weill, Academies – or "schools-within-schools" – help to prepare a diverse pool of young high school students for careers and further education through work-based experiences and school-based curricula. The new IT Academies will expand on the success of NAF’s existing career Academy models in finance and travel & tourism.

Today, the NAF serves more than 20,000 high school students in 350 Academies in 37 states, with roughly two-thirds of the students being identified as "at risk" and 75% from minority communities.

An $8 million commitment from several private companies will help NAF create the IT Academies.

The IT Academies will consist of a 9th through 12th grade curriculum with opportunities to partner with community colleges and universities. The program will be tightly aligned with relevant academic, employment, and workplace standards.

By September 2000, ten pilot sites will be chosen, serving 350-400 students. One year later, 40 new schools will be added, with 40-50 added each year thereafter.

Commerce Report on the Digital Divide. In conjunction with the NAF Conference, the Department of Commerce today released its third annual "Falling Through the Net" survey. This report finds that while more Americans than ever have access to telephones, computers, and the Internet, there remains a significant "digital divide" between the information "haves" and "have nots" – and in some cases, the divide has widened.

The report shows that the technology divide between those at the highest and lowest education levels has increased by 25%, and the divide between those at the highest and lowest income levels has grown by 29%.

The Clinton-Gore administration is committed to closing the digital divide through increased support for Community Technology Centers; full funding for the e-rate, which provides discounts to connect schools and libraries to the Internet; and competition in the telecommunications market.

Real Commitments for Disadvantaged Youth. Today, dozens of corporations, organizations, and individuals announced –through both the Youth Opportunity Movement and the National Academy Foundation -- a wide array of commitments focused on providing young people opportunities in the workplace. (See attachments)

Corporate and Nonprofit Leaders, Athletes, and Entertainers Will Join the President Today:

$8 Million in Corporate Commitments – including $2.8 Million from Lucent Technologies. A total of $8 million from several private companies, including Lucent Technologies ($2.8 million), will help NAF to create the new Information Technology academies.

$1 Million from America Online. America Online will provide in excess of $1 million in grants seeking innovative and new ideas on digital divide solutions. In addition, AOL will create a national online clearinghouse on digital divide information, initiatives, and resources in partnership with the Benton Foundation.

More than $1.42 Million from AT&T. In order to help address the digital divide, AT&T is committing a total of $1.42 million to help give communities greater access to technology. Working with national organizations like the NAACP, the National Urban League, and the Community Technology Centers’ Network (a national membership organization that seeks to advocate for equity in access to technology), AT&T will provide technology resources and training to community-based organizations.

In Los Angeles, AT&T has worked closely with the LA Urban League and will continue to work with them to advance the goal of access for youth to technology.

AT&T’s commitment builds on their previous work with the LA County’s Office of Education Technology for Learning initiative, which established 25 neighborhood-based technology centers. Expanding on this, AT&T will help the LA County and the Greenlining Institute, a multi-ethnic advocacy center whose mission is to empower communities of color and other disadvantaged groups, to establish an additional 14 community technology centers throughout Los Angeles.

AT&T will also provide funds so that residents of the Ujima Village Low-Income Housing Program will have access to technology and training at the Magic Johnson/AT&T Technology Center.

AT&T will support the Puente Learning Center, with locations in Boyle Heights and South Central LA, in providing free computer-based education programs to children, youth, and adults.

CORPORATE AND NONPROFIT COMMITMENTS TO THE
YOUTH OPPORTUNITIES MOVEMENT

The California Endowment will invest $15 million in out-of-school youth activities.

Cisco Systems will expand the Cisco Networking Academy information technology training course offerings from the current level -- in 15 different Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities -- to 35 of those economically disadvantaged areas.

The Los Angeles-based company will partner with as many of the Labor Department’s current Youth Opportunity grant communities as possible in addition to selected Job Corps centers, and will also develop a web-based placement system to allow students to be matched with employers.

Cisco will recruit employers through an information campaign to customers, partners and the general business community, with the potential to reach 65,000 people in the first two years. The estimated financial commitment from Cisco is in excess of $800,000.

The Fluke Corporation will provide all the above-mentioned Cisco Networking Academies with test tool equipment valued at $750,000.

United Parcel Service will commit to hire 2,000 out-of-school youth by the end of 2000, and become a partner with all 11 existing Youth Opportunity communities. The partnerships will include human resource expertise, curriculum development for training programs, and mentoring.

Toyota Motor Sales USA will commit up to $1 million over three years to Los Angeles area nonprofit organizations that the company finds meet specific criteria, including referring qualified 18-22 year olds who will be admitted to the Los Angeles Urban League Automotive Training Center. Toyota pledges to hire some of the graduates of that program.

Act 1 Personnel Services of Torrance, Calif. will partner with the Los Angeles Youth Opportunity Grant program to provide skills assessments and counseling.

Founders National Bank will partner with the Los Angeles Youth Opportunity grant program to design a curriculum on working in the financial industry.

Shell Oil will double the size and scope of its Watts/South Central-based Youth Training Academy with an additional $500,000 investment.

The Los Angeles Dodgers will host a job fair to connect youth with employers and launch a mentoring relationship with the Los Angeles Youth Opportunity grant organization and other youth in Northeast Los Angeles.

Prudential Insurance will commit to ensuring that affordable child care is provided for participants in Youth Opportunity grant programs in Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Boston, and Denver, and will provide those sites with the curriculum for the Prudential Young Entrepreneurship Program which teaches business management skills.

United Way of the Bay Area and the Barry Bonds Family Foundation announces a $1 million "Link and Learn" initiative to fund computer learning centers in San Francisco and Oakland to help out-of-school youth.

KCBS-TV of Los Angeles will commit the equivalent of $500,000 in air time to promote youth programs including extensive airing of Department of Labor Youth Opportunity Movement public service announcements. The news division will commit to news coverage of issues related to out-of-school youth challenges.

Tower Health and Pro Patient Plus will open a minimum of five clinics in inner city Los Angeles, partner with the Los Angeles Youth Opportunity grantee, and hire at least 25 youth in the next year.

The Enterprise Foundation and the Freddie Mac Foundation announce a $1 million commitment to participants in its Family Child Care Homeownership Program in Los Angeles, to make homeownership easier for young people.

The Chase Manhattan Foundation will run a financial literacy program for at-risk youth in distressed New York City neighborhoods, with a financial commitment of more than $250,000.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation will start an Employment Skills Readiness project as part of its Neighborhoods in Transition and Jobs-First initiative, in 22 U.S. cities.

Ms. Foundation for Women’s national funding partnership is committing $2 million to support the evaluation and documentation of best practices in the field of girls leadership programming nationwide.

The Village Foundation and the Kellogg Foundation will co-host a national foundation roundtable in September on the Youth Opportunity Movement and the New Markets Initiative.

Synopsys, though not formally associated with the Youth Opportunities Movement, is making a $3 million commitment over three years to help to advance high school science and math education in Silicon Valley through scientific research and project-based learning.

Several companies have committed to hire several out-of-school youth as part of the Youth Opportunity Movement: